A haphazard mish mash of geek, kitsch, science and philosophy

Other Writings

Hall of Fame

Fuller's Dymaxion Earth MapMaps, like all framed images, mold our perceptions of reality. Take a look at what a new perspective can do for your world view. Understand the subtle politics of cartography.

Fused Fiber Optic MagnifierThis incredible device magnifies without a lens. The image is virtually lifted from the source and can be viewed from any angle. It needs to be seen in person to be believed!

Huge Helium BalloonsSure you can buy these at any gift store, but think about shipping them UPS. Your recipient receives an enormous box that feels completely empty. People are sure to gather 'round. When they open it, the balloon pops out with your message in tow. I love it!

MacAquariumI made one of these myself almost ten years ago and put it on my desk at work. Aside from being soothing and cool, I was continually amused by people who thought it was a screensaver. I know it sounds crazy but it's true. Nothing funnier than "feeding" the "fake" fish and watching their moment of realization.

Mexican Jumping BeansIn this day and age it is important to realize that a little moth can do what no motors and batteries could: jump around for weeks and weeks making everybody startle and laugh!

Neodymium Super MagnetsUnbelievably strong magnets have only started to become mainstream. These are amazing and worth the price.

Radioactive RocksThese are the heaviest remnants of the supernova which formed our solar system. And some look like Kryptonite!

Rubber Band BallsEveryone loves them and they are easy enough to make (Did you know the post office will give you free rubber bands if you ask at the counter?). Too lazy? Try this. Or, use it as a starting point for your own mega ball.

Thinking PuttyOk, I'm a little biased on this one but after 5 years I still can't put my own piece down. Bounce it, Stretch it, Tear it!

Tritium Glow RingsOk, so they are illegal inside the US, but Great Britian thinks they're bollocks. Try eBay and take your chances if you're on the other side of the pond.

Movies To See

Walter Mattau, Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman: Fail SafeThis film details an accidental attack on Moscow by a wing of American strategic bombers. Both sides scramble to avert World War III, as the bombers streak inexorably towards their target. Everything looks incredibly authentic and the effect of reality is nearly total.
(*****)

Godfrey Reggio: KoyaanisqatsiTimeless beauty and universal theme keep it watchable twenty years on. Its influence on movies and television in that time is striking. Try to imagine a world without this 'Way of Seeing' (*****)

Ben Kingsley: GandhiEpic movies on this scale often become dull and lifeless as they retell the iconic moments of the subject's life. Not so, here. Beautifully shot, expertly acted, and superly written. Don't miss it. (*****)

Robert De Niro, Robin Williams: AwakeningsOliver Sack's most powerful work brought to life on the screen by Robert De Niro in a transformation that defies understanding. As with Ben Kingsley's Gandhi, the actor shows us a human transformation that no makeup or special effects could ever offer. (*****)

Clint Eastwood: The Good, the Bad & the UglyEastwood famously described himself, "I'm not so good at talking. I'm real good at staring." This film created its own genre and inspired a generation of filmmakers. A spaghetti western set during the Civil War, the director looks at evil in the human soul. (****)

Sylvester Stallone: RockyGreat writing, direction, and acting combined with a heroic ending that no studio head would ever approve. This movie broke the mold enough to stand out but no so much as to be unavailable to the masses. A real American movie! (*****)

Global Warming circa 10,000 BC

With the advent of accurate mapping, high-resolution satellite imagery, and expensive beachfront property, we view the Earth's geography as static and unchanging. Sure, the continents looked very different when the dinosaurs roamed, but that was 100 million years ago.

Today's landscape is a pre-printed game board. The unchanging surface on which we, our children, and our children's children will live our lives. When the size of a river delta grows or shrinks, people cry foul. When a barrier island is ravaged by storm, people cry foul. When a drought causes productive farmland to become arid, people cry foul. Inevitably, the Army Corp of Engineers is brought in to make things right.

Driven mainly by human urban and industrial activity, our planet is undergoing a rapid climate change. The Earth is in transition from a moderate inter-glacial period into something hotter. Our use of fossil fuels and resultant greenhouse gases heat our planet. Our cities create localized heat islands of concrete, pavement, and glass. Even without our influence, climate and geography are never fixed. A beneficial climate may last for generations, but our Earth never stands still.

Many of us have seen maps of Pangea, the global supercontinent during the dinosaur age. Although our imaginations can wander it's unknowable surface, it is very abstract to us. No humans explored its mountains or shores. No intelligent beings made maps and wondered 'Why is this here?"

The Earth at the end of the last ice age is more real because our ancestors lived it. Pre-historic humans lived on and around the glaciers. And, this ice retreated, our ancestors moved in. What had once been buried by 2 mile thick sheets of ice became fertile farmland and hunting grounds. As the weight of the ice was lifted, the land underneath rebounded, gaining in altitude. As the ice melted, the seas rose. Countless numbers of our ancestors died in catastrophic floods as rising temperatures caused natural ice dams to fail and release massive lakes of meltwater onto the landscape.

If an altered climate changed the world so drastically during recent glacial periods, how will the Earth be changed 2000 years from now. How long will it take Mother Nature to wash away the impact of our industrial lifestyle?

The real question about global climate change isn't whether our Earth will survive our insults, but whether or not we are capable of living in the world we create.

The last ice age, the Wisconsinan, reached it peak around 18,000 years ago. By 12,000 years ago, glacial melting was in full effect. To understand the last ice age relative to human activity, one remembers that modern humans had settled Europe by at least 35,000 years ago. These were the kind of people that lived in small communities, had calendars, buried their dead, created artwork, cared for their sick, and would hunt in well-coordinated groups. These people had language, not animal grunts and noises. These ice age people were no different from us.

The links below offer a selection of ice age geologic features across North America and Europe. Learn how quickly larger-than-life landscapes can change on the whim of Earth's climate. Try to imagine trying to survive in a time of such catastrophic change.

Glacial Lake Missoula - The size of Lake Erie and Ontario combined, this glacial lake covered most of Montana's western edge. It contained over 500 cubic miles of water. When the dam of glacial ice failed, it released a catastrophic flood that released this entire quantity of water overnight across Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This massive torrent carved out Grand Canyon-sized features in the blink of an eye.

Long Island - Over 4 million people live on Long Island. Did you know that it's geological origins are fairly recent? In fact, the earliest humans to arrive would have found an uninterrupted plain leading from Connecticut out to the Atlantic where the shoreline was 50 to 70 miles south of its present location. Long Island Sound didn't even exist.

Coastlines and Sea Levels Around the World - At the height of the last ice age, sea levels were 100 meters (109 yards) lower than they are today. As the ice age came to a close, the sea began to rise. Each year of glacial melting released vast quantities of water into the Earth's oceans. For decades, the sea level rose at least one foot per year. In areas with gentle sloping land, this meant the sea could move inland by a mile or more in a single year. And, it would continue to grow, year after year. Considering man's ties to the sea and his dependence on it for food, it is no surprise that we don't find evidence of pre-historic settlements along the Earth's seashores. They have long since drowned under the ocean.

Black Sea Deluge - As the Earth's water increasingly became bound up as glacial ice, ocean levels dropped. The Black Sea connects to the Mediterranean through the Bosporus, a thin silty channel. With water levels low, the two bodies of water were separated and the Black Sea existed as a smaller, freshwater lake for thousands of years. A new theory posits that around 7000 years ago, as the ice melted and the Mediterranean rose, it burst through the Bosporus in a sudden rush. The volume of water at the break would have been greater than 200 times that of Niagara Falls. Within a year's time over sixty thousand square miles of landscape were under water.

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Comments

A perspective on global warming - On the one hand, the Earth has undergone heating and CO2 levels much greater than what we have now or are expected to produce within the next 100 years. Perhaps the biggest problem related to the current global warming induced by industrial activity is that it is happening so rapidly that the Earth's natural processes cannot adjust. Since the industrial revolution began, CO2 levels have risen from 280 parts per million to 380 ppm today. Such an increase in just a couple of centuries has never, to my understanding, ever occurred before. Natural changes in the past occurred over thousands or millions of years.

The earth has been warming since the retreat of the glaciers in a contant state. That you fail to understand that we human have little or no impactmve the Sun, Oceans and volcano is beyond 25,000 American
scientists who sign a document stating that fact.

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Darrell Huff: How to Lie With StatisticsWritten in 1954, this entertaining, easy read has lost none of its relevance. Go ahead and strengthen your personal baloney detector. As Benjamin Disraeli once opined, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." (*****)

Robert Young Pelton: The World's Most Dangerous PlacesA tome that's easy to pick up and put down. Learn about the world from a very different perspective than a typical travel guide. Witty prose, great pictures, and black humor will keep you reading from country to country. (****)

Robert Harris: FatherlandAn excellent murder mystery set inside Nazi Germany twenty years after they were victorious in the Second World War. A sharp sense of historical "what if" built on top of real Nazi plans for the years following their conquest. (****)